Page 16 of Fated to the Hunter
“What if those hard drives don’t exist?”
She shrugged. “Then you and Bael’k went on a wonderful adventure. Didn’t you say you were getting bored with the same thing day in and day out?”
I had. It was in one of the mental health threads on the forum. That was the thing about living in the apocalypse. It was either too much excitement and near-death experiences, or a whole lot of boring nothing hiding in relative safety.
We made our way to the front of the building where Jorg’k and Bael’k were waiting. I was relieved to see that there wasn’t a crowd to send me off, and instead, just Roger and Melissa, plus the group that had fractioned off from us and moved to the Great Plains.
We were all traveling together for the first leg of the trip, along with Connie and Jorg’k, who’d decided last minute to come along. I suspected my friend wanted to keep an eye out on me, and I appreciated it.
The moment Bael’k saw me, he slapped his fist to his chest and bowed low.
“It is an honor to be selected to travel with The Keeper of Knowledge.”
Several people tittered. I glared over at Connie, but she looked just as confused.
Bael’k must’ve been on the forum. Had he been cyberstalking me? The ongoing inside joke on the forum was that I was the keeper of old knowledge, so I’d changed my nickname to The Keeper of Knowledge in the forum and on my website. It was a joke. But clearly Bael’k thought it was a formal title.
I’d have to clear things up once we were alone. After several long hugs and a promise that they’d call if they figured out anything—the Tech Wizards all had a copy of the map—I said goodbye and stepped into Bael’k’s shuttle.
The first thing I noticed was the lack of secondary seating aside from the pilot seat. I tried to recall the trip out to the libraries on Jorg’k’s shuttle. Did Dottie and I have a seat? Yes, I remember now.
It was a big leather seat from the back of an Escalade. In addition to that, there was even a little basket attached to keep Tooth safe during liftoff and landing, though they’d removed the cat tree that had once been in the shuttle, and it now sat in their living quarters at the hunters’ compound.
Many of the hunters living in New Franklin had installed comfortable seats behind their pilot’s chair for their mates, but Bael’k’s shuttle had nowhere for me to sit. Whatever, I’d just sit in the sleeping nook during takeoff, and we’d figure it out as we went. I slapped my palm on the control panel of the sleeping nook. Nothing happened.
“Oh, right. I don’t have access.”
I turned sheepishly to Bael’k and was hit by the sudden look of need in his eyes. They were practically glowing. Then I realized it looked like I was inviting myself into his bed. Talk about a misunderstanding!
The image of him in his sleeping nook, his loincloth abandoned on the shuttle floor, suddenly filled my head and my body roared to life.
Welp, so much for keeping things casual.
Xarc’n warriors had an impeccable sense of smell; they put sharks to shame. And I was a hundred and ten percent certain he could smell the gush of arousal that dampened my underwear just now. I squeezed my legs together even as the shuttle filled with the sound of his purring.
Oh yeah, he knew.
Thick, tree branch arms wrapped around me, pulling me to his rumbling chest.
“Um, I thought it would be safer to be in there for liftoff.” Man, that sounded like an excuse even to me.
“Yes, that was what you were thinking. But that is not what you are thinking now,” he said, calling me out. Damn these aliens and their blunt honesty.
“What… what do you mean?”
“You smell of desire, female with the flame hair.” He nudged the shell of my ear with his nose. “Your friend at the ko-feee booth said you were not interested in Xarc’n males. She says you do not like our horns and claws. Was she mistaken? You smell of lust and desire for me.”
My mouth hung open for a second. Ah, Holly, bless her heart. She was probably trying to help me while making herself seem like the better option. I didn’t blame her.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be blunt. Holly is right in that I’m not interested in starting a relationship with a Xarc’n warrior. And it’s not that I don’t like your horns and claws. Yes, they remindme that the world I love is gone. But I don’t have anything against them. Not really. I actually think the horns are kind of cute.”
He made an annoyed sound. “Hunters are not cute. Tooth is cute. Waffles is cute. Moose is cute. Hunters are not cute.”
Tooth and Waffles, I knew. But I did not know of any animal named Moose. He must be from the Great Plains camp.
“I mean it in a good way,” I said. “They are majestic.”
“I will accept that,” he said, mollified.
